Faith in Action

By Cheah Wui Jia

Photos by Lim Fei Xiang and Joanna Maria 

On Day Five of the trip, the students made their way to Chuong Trinh AIDS, a NGO that helps the HIV/AIDS patients of Ho Chi Minh city through multiple channels. Having ties with a number of organizations and sub-groups, we met Mr. Pham Thanh Van, the co-ordinator, whose organization liaises with community efforts to collectively come together as one and aid HIV/AIDs patients. It was into these community efforts that the students were then divided into for the day’s session. While some were assigned to visit the Pagoda’s community effort, others went to see how individual community members had taken on leadership roles to aid others within the community.

 The common thread binding all four groups is the social pandemic HIV/AIDS, showing just how ubiquitous the disease has become and how various walks of life have incorporated it into their community efforts to deal with it as effectively as possible.

This particular account has been written by a student who made house visits to community leaders of the Bin Thanh district. - Editors' Note

We met with Father Vincent and volunteers of Caritas Saigon, Joe and Joseph, at the house of the archbishop who together with ten other priests governs the diocese of Ho Chi Minh City. This diocese coordinates efforts of the 200 units of parishes within the province, uniting them for a common cause: to love the community. The word “caritas” is the Latin word for charity. Father Vincent, also known by his Vietnamese name Vincent Dao, is the director of Caritas Saigon.

Father Vincent of Caritas Saigon having a chat with Dr Yeoh

Caritas Internationalis is a confederate of 165 Roman Catholic relief, development and social service organizations functioning in over 200 countries. The members are part of a national charitable organization that works with the support of their respective Church. Each Caritas member nation has a diocese. Caritas Saigon constitutes a diocese of Caritas Vietnam.

The vision of the Catholic organization constitutes the expression of the love of God in the form of caring for the disadvantaged. Father Vincent describes the poor “in materials or in love” as the target groups of this organization. The slogan of Caritas Saigon, “The Joy of Service”, manifests itself in the various ways by which Caritas attempts to bridge the rich and the poor; Caritas Saigon professes that its aim is to link the rich at heart, who want to provide funds or other forms of support, to the poor and vulnerable. The latter encompasses HIV positive children, children of migrants, and young women dealing with pregnancies out of wedlock. Caritas Saigon aims to ensure that support or resources are channeled to, in the words of Joe who is a volunteer of Caritas Saigon, “the right people at the right time”.

The motto of Caritas Saigon

   According to Caritas Saigon, the income disparity in Vietnam is widening; the United Nations states that high wage earning Vietnamese earn an income that equals 36.2 times that of low wage earners. 5.1 million PWDs (People With Disabilities) make up seven percent of the Vietnamese population. 293 000 Vietnamese are HIV positive carriers, with Ho Chi Minh City having the highest percentage of HIV/AIDS sufferers. Caritas believes that the Catholic faith needs to be made evident by ministering to the needs of these vulnerable groups.

        Vietnamese law prohibits proselytization of any form of religion; the government, suspicious of the intentions of the organization shut it down in 1976. In the year of 2008, Caritas Vietnam was allowed by the government to resume its operation after the Vietnamese government recognized the impact that Caritas organizations had made in the international arena. While Caritas Saigon has not been officially granted the license to operate as a relief organization, it nevertheless undertakes its humanitarian efforts by maintaining a low profile, refraining from the execution of large-scaled projects or the attribution of a particular relief effort to Caritas Saigon.

        Caritas Saigon ministers to the needs of the AIDS victims. The HIV/AIDS department was set up in the year of 2005, setting up clinics for children suffering from AIDS. It is in charge of five “Love Shelters”, providing food, counseling, and medication. By promoting awareness on the disease, Caritas Saigon attempts to educate the public on HIV/AIDS to eliminate stigma and exclusion. One of the shelters operated by Caritas Saigon is the Mai Tam shelter which provides care, medicine and education programs to mothers and women living with HIV in Ho Chi Minh City.

        Urban migration occurs at a high rate in Vietnam. Children of migrant workers are often underprivileged as individuals who have been uprooted from their homes. They are unable to obtain an education as their migrant parents struggle financially to make ends meet. As a result, these migrant children are often found loitering on the streets instead of attending school in the day. Caritas Saigon conducts “Loving Classes” which provides the migrant children with basic meals and cultivating in them a desire and eagerness to learn. On top of that, they work with the community to send these children to school or to skills training centre for those who are of working age.

        Abortion occurs at a high rate; 2.4 million cases of abortion occur every year, and women who have undergone abortion tend to suffer from depression. These women are therefore in need of spiritual support. The archbishop’s house has consulting rooms where single women dealing with pregnancies receive counseling and the support that they need. Caritas Saigon hopes to provide sex education to young women by teaching them the value of life, love and sex.

Group photograph with our hosts Father Vincent, Joe and Joseph

        We ended the session feeling inspired by the efforts of Caritas Saigon. After taking a group photograph with Father Vincent, Joe and Joseph, we bid our hosts farewell and proceeded to our next destination at a local café to enjoy some Vietnamese coffee.

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Cheah Wui Jia, 23, is currently an Honours student doing her thesis on Christianity in Malaysia and its tithing practices. She’s a fresh Arts graduate who likes to study people and how they behave (thus the Psychology major), and loves writing about people (hence the Writing major).

Loving the Fringes of Society

By Joanna Maria and Cheah Wui Jia

Photographs by Joanna Maria and Christyna Fong

On Day Four of the trip, the students made their way to Chuong Trinh AIDS, a NGO that helps the HIV/AIDS patients of Ho Chi Minh city through multiple channels. Having ties with a number of organizations and sub-groups, we met Mr. Pham Thanh Van, the co-ordinator, whose organization liaises with community efforts to collectively come together as one and aid HIV/AIDS patients. It was into these community efforts that the students were then divided into for the day’s session. While some were assigned to visit the Pagoda’s community effort, others went to see how individual community members had taken on leadership roles to aid others within the community.

The common thread binding all four groups is the social pandemic HIV/AIDS, showing just how ubiquitous the disease has become and how various walks of life have incorporated it into their community efforts to deal with it as effectively as possible.

This particular account has been written by students who visited the organisation Suc Song, founded by a person of Catholic faith.

“What do you think about people with HIV? Do you think they are abnormal?”

Miss Vu Thi Hue, founder of Suc Song, an organization that caters to the needs of those affected by poverty, AIDS or domestic abuse, posed the six of us this question when we visited her house on Day Three of the Saigon trip.

(from left to right) Tunh (volunteer from Suc Song), Monash student Christyna, Miss Hue, students of Monash Mumbi, Joanna, Wui Jia, Andrea, and student guides Thu and Thang.

 

Suc Song reaches out to Acquired Immuno Deficiency  Syndrome (AIDS) patients by providing a haven that offers emotional and social support and helps them in coping with the stigma surrounding the disease.  Last year they also helped provide aid and support to domestic abuse victims. The Suc Song organization has been in existence for more than three years. The founder of Suc Song, Miss Hue, attributes her cause to her Catholic faith. She feels a divine calling in her endeavor to minister to the spiritual needs of HIV/AIDS victims, who, according to her, would be vulnerable to emotional distress in relation to their physical ailments.

Anh, a volunteer with Suc Song, also ascribes her service to the organisation to her Catholic faith, her relation with the HIV/AIDS patients probably made more realistic by the fact that her husband, Man, is an AIDS sufferer. This, however, does not dampen the social workers’ passion. Anh believes that volunteering to work for the service of HIV+ victims is a calling from God.

While some of the social workers have family members who are suffering from AIDS, they are not easily beaten in spirit. Assistant leader Nguyen Van Tuan who has been doing volunteering work for the past 3 years, believes that it is his “calling” and love for God that encouraged him to carry out community projects amongst women and children affected by HIV/AIDS. Moreover the matter resides close to Mr. Tuan’s heart as he has family members affected by HIV. Having experienced the discrimination by society, he is passionate for others to not experience the bigotry experienced by his family by providing a safe environment for these women to turn to.

Volunteers from Suc Song joining the Monash students and the Vietnamese student guides for a group shot

Most of the social workers are of the Catholic faith and devout in their belief. HIV/AIDS patients are introduced to religion in order to help them gain peace of mind and heart. During the counseling stages, new patients are given a brochure that introduces them to ‘Catholicism’ and if interested, they are then directed to a counselor that guides them through their new faith. Although non-believers are not forced to accept Christianity, there are a significant number of HIV/AIDS victims (40%) that accept and embrace Catholicism. The conversion rate is even higher amongst orphan children living with HIV/AIDS (90%).

 “We feel normal and happy. We try to provide support to our own family members and help them cope with the discrimination that they face,” says Tan, a social worker.

Social workers Tan and Xuan sharing a light moment.

Volunteers of Suc Song meet these victims once a month at the house of Miss Hue to offer a listening ear or advice as sufferers of AIDS discuss difficulties and personal experiences associated with the disease.

In Vietnam, the discrimination against people with HIV/AIDS is very high. Due to misconceptions and lack of education of the illness, those who test positive are often driven away from homes and jobs, left to fend for themselves. Children with HIV/AIDS are barred from schools hence depriving them from a proper education system. Suc Song sends support groups to visit the homes of affected children. The children of the HIV-positive women who come to Miss Hue’s house for solace participate alongside their mothers in support group meetings during special occasions or festivals. In such circumstances, religion becomes a tool of strength and inspiration for these women and children to accept their circumstances and integrate into society.

Apart from religion, counselors of Suc Song group employ a 4-step method to counsel and rehabilitate new victims. The four steps are: (a) approach, (b) consulting, (c) assistance and (d) reallocation. The first step refers to the various methods that are used to engage HIV/AIDS victims into the program.

The first step predominantly refers to volunteers who venture into the hospitals to acquire the addresses of those positively tested for HIV/AIDS in order to offer them a support system and help them cope with their daily life. In addition, the “snowballing” technique is also used to reach out to new victims. Often current members of the Suc Song program introduce their friends and relatives thus enabling more women to gain the proper care that they so desperately need. The second step involves physical consultation where women living with HIV/AIDS are taught to better care for themselves. Their main focus is to educate these women on the importance of healthy eating habits as well as hygiene maintenance. In instances were the women are too poor to afford to maintain a healthy diet, the volunteers would often find sponsors who are willing to finance these women.

During the third step, volunteers assist these women and children in two ways; (a) physical needs – ensuring sufficient medication for women and children who need it, (b) psychological needs – by providing counseling to those who are troubled. The final step, refers to the reallocation of women and children who have been ostracised and abandoned by their family members. The Suc Song volunteers would then find these women another residence, where they can find work and lead somewhat of a normal life, while having the support they need in order to overcome their circumstances.

The Suc Song group also runs other programs where they distribute condoms to sex workers and educate them on the importance of practicing safe sex. In addition, they also try to create awareness and educate people regarding HIV/AIDS. Most importantly perhaps, the Suc Song group is advocating against discrimination, especially against children in order to enable to get a proper education system.

“Perhaps the most important thing we bring to another person is the silence in us, not the sort of silence that is filled with unspoken criticism or hard withdrawal. The sort of silence that is a place of refuge, of rest, of acceptance of someone as they are. We are all hungry for this other silence. It is hard to find… Silence is a place of great power and healing.” This is a quote by Dr Rachel Naomi Remen, famous for developing a psychological approach to people with life threatening illnesses. Suc Song has done exactly that, catering to the needs of approximately fifty women. We left Miss Hue’s house, warmed by her passion for social justice and most of all, her desire for people to be loved and accepted.

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Joanna Maria, 25, is an Honours student doing a thesis on female gamers and identity negotiation.

CheahWuiJia, 23, is currently an Honours student doing her thesis on Christianity in Malaysia and its tithing practices. She’s a fresh Arts graduate who likes to study people and how they behave (thus the Psychology major), and loves writing about people (hence the Writing major).